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City, county sense water urgency

Two Cents

Posted:
02/27/2013 02:09:58 PM MST

There has been several items of interest printed recently surrounding the Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act and its potential effect on the Gila River. We write this editorial in an effort to provide accurate information and to complement the local governments working together in an effort to keep these precious resources in the southwestern corner of New Mexico, where it rightfully belongs.

The Arizona Water Rights Settlement Act of 2004 provides for up to 14,000 acre-feet of water to be diverted and consumptively used in New Mexico. This water is the last new water the southwest corner of the state will ever have available for current and future uses.

If we do not take advantage of the right to use it in the four county area, the water will be used somewhere else in New Mexico and our ability to use it will be lost forever.

The future of the southwest four counties depends on securing the right to use this water today.

If the current drought has taught us one thing, it should be that a price cannot be attached to the value of water. When there is no water available, having it is priceless. We must make decisions that are financially responsible and provide the resources we need to secure the future of our children and grandchildren.

Water diverted from the Gila River under the Act will be monitored to comply with very strict diversion limits that only allow flood flows to be captured.

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These flood flow diversions will not "destroy" the river as certain groups are trying to imply.

Other important factors to take into consideration regarding the project include:

1. If the project comes to fruition, this will be the third largest lake in New Mexico. The economic benefits of this will be real and sustainable.

2. This project will not "destroy" the Gila River, far from it. Diversions can only occur during high flows when there is an excess, and could be returned if necessary during droughts to keep the river wet, helping both farmers and the river. The terms of the diversion were carefully crafted to ensure that the ecologic function of the river can not only be fully protected, but can even be improved. It should not be a problem to help the river and help the users too!

3. A continued pumping of groundwater is only a short term solution. We are depleting our ground water faster than it is being recharged. Development of the new Gila water under the AWSA, a renewable supply, will be required to provide for future needs.

4. The 14,000 acre feet of water available to New Mexico on the Gila is going to be the last new water in the very dry southern part of the state.

Passing it up is just not rational.

5. We should let New Mexico's past history be a guide. In the early 1960's, Clovis and Portales could have developed the safe yield from the Ute Reservoir for about $43 million dollars. They didn't. Today's it is going to cost them over $500 million dollars.

6. Albuquerque and Santa Fe claimed in the 1950's that they had an inexhaustible supply of water. Yet, in the late 1950's, they still signed on to the San Juan Chama project. If they had not done this, they would have had to find that water somewhere else and the cost would be in the billions.

7. Investments in natural resources, from the Louisiana Purchase to Alaska and the Gila, always pay off big in the end.

We complement county governments in Grant, Hidalgo, Luna and Catron counties for working together to create solutions for southwestern New Mexico. We applaud local officials for looking to the future and for attempting to avoid the passage of huge debt to our children and grandchildren by acting now in a responsible way.

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